Maternal and Paternal Attachment Style and Chaos as Risk Factors for Parenting Behavior

Household chaos and insecure parental attachment styles are associated with lower quality parenting behaviors. However, there is a paucity of evidence regarding fathers' parenting behaviors, and no studies examine if chaotic home environments moderate the attachment style-parenting behavior relationship. Using data from both mothers and fathers of 742 children (40.5% African American) living in rural, low-resource communities, the current study examined the individual and joint effects of self-reported adult attachment style and two domains of household chaos on observed maternal and paternal parenting behaviors during structured play with their 58-month old child (49.6% female). Multivariate models revealed that, even after controlling for confounders, attachment insecurity predicted lower quality parenting behavior for mothers and fathers. Further, for both mothers and fathers, the disorganized domain of household chaos, representing environments high in noise, clutter and disorder, predicted less sensitive and more intrusive parenting behavior. Finally, for mothers with dismissive attachment styles, high levels of disorganization appeared to exacerbate caregiving difficulties; this moderating relationship was not evident for fathers. These findings suggest that the stress of a chronically disorganized family environment may impact the expression of mothers' insecure tendencies in the context of parenting, thereby intensifying less sensitive and more intrusive parenting behaviors.